Air Pollution Control Act
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| Long title | An Act to provide research and technical assistance relating to air pollution control. |
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| Acronyms (colloquial) | APCA |
| Nicknames | Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 |
| Enacted by | the 84th United States Congress |
| Effective | July 14, 1955 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 84-159 |
| Statutes at Large | 69 Stat. 322 |
| Codification | |
| Titles amended | 42 U.S.C.: Public Health and Social Welfare |
| U.S.C. sections created | 42 U.S.C. ch. 85 § 7401 et seq. |
| Legislative history | |
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The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 (Pub.L. 84–159, ch. 360, 69 Stat. 322) was the first Clean Air Act (United States) enacted by Congress to address the national environmental problem of air pollution on July 14, 1955. This was "an act to provide research and technical assistance relating to air pollution control". The act "left states principally in charge of prevention and control of air pollution at the source". The act declared that air pollution was a danger to public health and welfare, but preserved the "primary responsibilities and rights of the states and local government in controlling air pollution".
The act put the federal government in a purely informational role, authorizing the United States Surgeon General to conduct research, investigate, and pass out information "relating to air pollution and the prevention and abatement thereof". Therefore, The Air Pollution Control Act contained no provisions for the federal government to actively combat air pollution by punishing polluters. The next Congressional statement on air pollution would come with the Clean Air Act of 1963.
The Air Pollution Control Act was the culmination of much research done on fuel emissions by the federal government in the 1930s and 1940s. Additional legislation was passed in 1963 to better fully define air quality criteria and give more power in defining what air quality was to the secretary of Health, Education, and Labor. This additional legislation would provide grants to both local and state agencies. A replacement, the United States Clean Air Act (CAA), was enacted to substitute the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. A decade later the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act was enacted to focus more specifically on automotive emission standards. A mere two years later, the Federal Air Quality Act was established to define "air quality control regions" scientifically based on topographical and meteorological facets of air pollution.
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